This class will teach about environmental history before 1800. No previous knowledge about history, science, or the environment is necessary to enjoy and learn from this course.

Environmental history is an original way of studying history that includes studying plants, animals, weather, climate, disease, and the attitudes of people toward nature. All of these things affect history, and this class will help students understand how they do so.

I decided to offer this class because there are hundreds of quality books about traditional history that focus on famous people, war, politics, and so forth. There are also many teachers qualified to teach the history of these things.

But very few of these books pay any attention to the environment, except maybe after 1970 or so. This deprives students of a chance to learn history in a different way, a history that focuses on the experiences of normal people, nature, and the cause-and-effect relationship between people and their environment. I am particularly qualified to teach this class, given that my PhD is in Environmental History.

The main topics included in this course will be:

1 - The Columbian Exchange
2 - The environment and the native people of the Americas
3 - The relationship between the environment and European colonization
4 - How nature influenced economic development before 1800

By week, we will learn:

Week 1 (Jan 8 to 12)
Introduce the class and begin learning about the Columbian Exchange

Week 2 (Jan 15 to 19)
Complete learning about the Columbian Exchange

Week 3 (Jan 22 to 26)
Learn about the environment and the native people of the Americas

Week 4 (Jan 29 to Feb 2)
Learn the relationship between the environment and European colonies in the Americas

Week 5 (Feb 5 to 9)
Learn about nature, natural resources, and their contribution to the world economy before 1800


My teaching style for this course will be a mix of lecture, slideshows, and discussions with students. Some lecture will be necessary because it is unlikely students have much prior knowledge of environmental history to draw upon, so there are some things I'll have to tell them as background knowledge. 

But we'll also have a daily class discussion based on what we've read in our book for the class, so students will certainly have the chance to speak, share ideas, ask questions, and so forth.

Every lesson comes with a slideshow full of visuals, maps, and an outline of the material covered in the class.

The class will meet 15 times total, 3 times per week for 5 weeks.